Chapter 1

I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, wished for more time, wished that I could shove away my toast and pumpkin juice and fall asleep right there, right then. I was usually an early bird, but somehow that quality of mine had become muddled during the long summer break. My summers usually consisted of waking up at 12 p.m., having breakfast for lunch and then playing Quidditch in the garden with my brothers until late in the night. Summers were perfect for playing Quidditch since the sun was typically as much of an insomniac as us then. I couldn't tell you how many snitches we'd lost this summer, due to the sun finally setting sometime around 2 a.m., and us giving up on ever finding it, with me always being the last one to give up and call it a night. Sometimes we'd find it speeding around outside the kitchen window the morning after.

It seemed wherever I went, I would always be the one caring the most about Quidditch, even though I was the last to try the sport in my family. I was also the only girl, which meant that it was never expected of me to play. It bothered me sometimes, thinking that maybe I'd be even better if I had only taken up the sport sooner, instead of waiting until I was ten even though my brothers started at the age of seven. I was always eager to try, but my mother held me back from it, being slightly overprotective of me. Although when the time came and I flew for the first time — I've been obsessed ever since. I flew every day and it didn't take long until I was quicker than all of my brothers, more agile and more skilled. It was nice having something to impress them with, especially since I was the designated "little sister", the only Hufflepuff among a clan of Gryffindor's.

At the realisation of how long I'd been pondering I flung my head up with a jolt, nearly getting whiplash. Damn it! I thought. I'd spaced out again. Why do I always get lost in thought like that? I looked at the clock above the teachers' table, it was nearly 8 a.m., and most teachers were gone, except professor Dumbledore who was eyeing me knowingly, he looked like he'd been waiting for me to return back to earth to witness my distraught. Shrugging off his penetrating gaze my mind sped like crazy. I needed to get to the dungeons for potions in only a couple of minutes, my mind span on, trying to figure out the quickest route from the Great Hall to the potions classroom, while fighting the hopelessness of the situation at the same time.

I spun around and stood up in the same motion as I got ready to run, but I was stopped in my haste, almost crashing into Oliver Wood, it was only then I realised he'd been trying to get my attention but I had only registered this in my unconscious as my mind had been quite preoccupied with other things right then.

"Penderghast." He greeted me, and I took a step back to create a more comfortable space between us. I saw that he looked quite uncomfortable. His eyes were darting between me and whatever was to my left. He put his hands behind him and straightened his back, regaining a confident posture as I greeted him with a smile, still feeling quite stressed but not wanting to appear so out of politeness.

"I'll make this quick as I can tell you have places to be." He said with a slight smile, if it was genuine or not I couldn't tell. He'd probably caught my longing gaze drifting toward the exit. "I heard you are Hufflepuff's new captain this year. Congratulations." Dread washed over me as he went on, I had managed to go a couple of hours without that fact crossing my mind, despite thinking about Quidditch for the bigger part of that time, and here he came along, dragging me down into a dark swamp of dread all over again. "Gryffindor is a strong team this year, we haven't been this strong in years, and it's going to be hard to beat us. But good luck none the less." He smiled and extended his hand in a form of peace offering I suppose. I took it as I was in no humour to start a war with Oliver Wood this year, despite us being on opposing sides. I said nothing as I was still struggling in the swamp of dread; instead I just smiled and passed him, making my way out of the great hall. When I had exited the room, I started my sprint toward the dungeons, knowing I was probably facing detention seeing as my teacher was who he was.

Much to my assumptions, as I walked in through the door the first thing I heard was a snap of "Detention!" from professor Snape's authoritarian voice before I had even spotted him standing in the front of the classroom. It was as though he'd been waiting for me to barge in, ready for the satisfaction of destroying a students first day back at Hogwarts. I said nothing; instead I threw my hands up in the air so as to say "whatever".

I caught sight of my Hufflepuff friends, all of them giving me pitying looks. They'd left breakfast before I had even got there and were now sitting in a safe unit with no space left for me. Which meant that my only option was sitting down next to Graham Montague, a Slytherin student. I slouched forward and sat down as quietly as I could. I didn't want to give professor Snape any other reasons to scold me.

Three seconds went by, and then five, we were all the way up at ten seconds before I heard the inevitable snort coming from Graham. I looked to my side to see him peering at me teasingly and I couldn't help but smile a muffled laugh myself. "I like to make an entrance." I whispered to him dully with a confident smile. His grin widened and I felt my body bloat with excitement to be re-joined with Graham after a long summer break and his lack of condescending pity for me.

Graham was a chaser just like me, only for the Slytherin team. He was a skinny bloke with pitch-black hair. We'd been friends ever since our second year. It had been my first ever Quidditch match and I was put in the hospital wing for falling off my broom, or rather, I was pushed of it by Flint, another Slytherin chaser (captain nowadays). Graham had come to see me in the hospital wing to see if I was all right and to apologise for his teammate, which had imprinted a deep fond for Graham inside me.

Sinking my head onto my desk I used my arms as a pillow. I wasn't that into potions, at least not the theoretical parts of our lessons, and I wasn't disciplined enough to pay attention despite my lack of interest. My thoughts wandered back to me being the captain. It wasn't so much the responsibility that I dreaded, I knew I could do it, Quidditch had been a large part of my life so far and I knew the sport like the back of my hand. Getting a team together and thinking up strategies wasn't a problem either; I could handle all of those things, I had been trained for those things. The thing I was dreading was the sudden seriousness of it all. Seriousness was not my cup of tea, and I didn't want my captainship to ruin Quidditch for me, I felt like it was going to make it excessively technical, which would take all the fun out of it. I couldn't let that happen. I didn't want to turn into Oliver Wood.

I take back what I said earlier about me always being the most passionate about Quidditch — not when I am in the same room as Oliver Wood. Honestly, I once heard a rumour that he had told his seeker to "catch the snitch or die trying"; he's on the fine line between overly passionate and mental.

Wood had been captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team since our fourth year. I've seen him heckling his teammates more times than I can count and the amusing part is: he doesn't even realise that he's bothering them. He's the most clueless person I've ever met, and that's not even a hyperbole. He doesn't ever think twice before he says something, and he's brutally honest sometimes. He's so caught up in his own little world that he thinks everyone is as passionate about Quidditch as he is, it seems like it's never even crossed his mind that maybe, there's a slight chance not everyone is as enthusiastic about flying on a broom 150 feet above the ground as he is. Still, I couldn't help but smile at the thought of his cluelessness. It's almost charming, emphasis on the almost. It's not all bad though; I had to applaud his passion.

Whichever was worst? I deliberated. Was it when I, in the midst of my absent-mindedness accidentally put lacewing flies into Grahams cauldron instead of mine, adding too much and making his explode. Was it when I took the wrong path and ended up on the opposite side of the castle to where charms was held? Or was it possibly when I finally arrived at the right classroom, making it the second class I had been late to in the same day as a result of my absent-mindedness, only to find out I'd accidentally brought Unfogging the Future instead of The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 6. I obviously didn't mention my mishap to Flitwick however and instead pretended that I had the right book, meaning that when he asked me about what I had read, I had to shamefully dismiss the question.

In short, my day had not been a good one. But it was time for the cherry on top: serving detention. I was serving it with Oliver for some unapparent reason; I didn't ask why he'd gotten detention. Although one can assume it had something to do with Quidditch, everything Oliver ever did innately revolved around the sport. Take now for an example, we were standing next to each other, polishing the trophies, and he couldn't shut up about how well trained his teammates were and how the Hufflepuff team would be an easy obstacle in the road to defeating the Slytherins. He rambled on, telling me that just yesterday, he'd practised the Porskoff Ploy with Angelina and Katie. Why he wasn't worried of me using this information to my advantage, I don't know.

"I tried to get them to agree on an impulse practise session today before I came here, but it was harder than I thought. I had a row with Alicia about it only to find out that the pitch was booked anyway."

Sensing that he was about to go on about something else –Oliver sure knew how to ramble– I said quickly, "I've had a long day, Oliver " Which came out quite irritably.

"Have I said something to upset you?" he asked, which was surprisingly deceptive of him.

Since he'd decided to be surprisingly deceptive I reasoned that I should match him by being surprisingly honest. "You're trying to make us enemies when comparing our teams; that's not the way I want to do this." I said while applying more force to my rubbing of the trophies.

Oliver looked on in confusion. "We are enemies, there's no denying that."

"We're on opposing sides, that doesn't mean we have to act like enemies." I said in my most pedagogical voice.

"What other way can we act?" I was mildly taken aback by how genuinely confused he seemed.

"How about being polite — being nice?" I turned and made my way over to the other side of the room, starting on a different trophy, but he followed.

"I am being polite." He retorted as he began polishing the one next to mine. We were throwing lines at each other in a heat. Like bad actors rehearsing a play, completely lacking constructive pauses.

I let out a breath. "I know, just skip the part where you trash my team and behave like we don't stand a chance."

He paused at this; finally it seemed like I'd penetrated the impervious. He gave me a barely existent smile and a nod, and then returned to the polishing without a sound.

I returned to my task as well, not exactly looking at what I was doing, my mind being somewhere else.

"Hey, Oliver." I interrupted our silent polishing after a while. He looked at me and I spoke calmly. "Look, I get it. You're used to this jargon with Flint where you trash each other and whatever, but that's not how I do things. It gets tiring, that's why I like to keep it civil. You're just going to have to get used to that." I spoke confidently. He did the same thing as he'd done before, giving me a barely existent smile and nod of his head.

We kept scrubbing until we were almost done and Oliver was the one to speak up. "I have a question." He said while still scrubbing.

"Shoot." I said without stopping either.

"You call Flint, Flint. Yet you always use my first name… why is that?"

"Oh come on Oliver. It's not the same. Flint's a total prick. And you're not… A total prick." I added. "Plus, I have friends on your team."

"You have friends on the Slytherin team as well… you're always with that Montague bloke." He argued.

"I have friend on the Slytherin team." I corrected. "Flint shoved me off my broom my first match!"

"I was there." He said knowingly.

"I was twelve years old for Merlin's sake!" We both paused and I had to catch my breath, I had gotten riled up.

"I still don't see why you-"

"Oh sod off Oliver!" I burst out.

"Now you're angry again." His face was as confused as his tone when he spoke. I almost wanted to congratulate him, well done Oliver, twice in one night you manage to perceive the obvious. But I didn't, because just like he'd guessed, I was angry.

"Yeah, I am angry!" I added a constructive pause for effect, just like the professional actor I was. "This is you trying to make us enemies again." I motioned between us, adding some of that dramatic gesturing. "I told you I don't want that! It doesn't sink in does it?" I had given up scrubbing a while ago, it didn't seem like we'd ever get this room clean.

He wasn't cleaning either, more staring at the trophy like he was trying to get it to clean itself, but I was doubtful he'd be skilled enough to use wandless and nonverbal magic at the same time. At the lack of response from him I continued the conversation by myself, taking the roll of the antagonist. "You know what, fine. We'll do it your way." The obvious irritation was still evident in my speech. "I just made us enemies, or rather, you forced me to. Either way, war is declared." I didn't know yet if I really meant the words I was speaking. Time would have to deduce that. "But I'm still calling you Oliver." I announced.

"Fine." He muttered, still not looking my way and continued scrubbing once again. Those were the last words we spoke that night.

Well in bed later that night, I couldn't quite comprehend what had gotten us to that point. I had been so sure I wanted nothing but friendship with Oliver. I thought I had acted so reasonably. Clearly, Oliver was not the reasoning type.

6 September 2018